War Letters from the Living Dead Man (7 page)

Go out on the hillside and watch the growing things. Take a leaf from the book of Nature. You wonder about the future of England. Old England is provided for. Has she not given birth to the civilization you enjoy? Other races were present, of course; but language tells the story. As I said before, England has been an instrument in the hands of these Great Ones who wished to make possible the fraternity of races. She has carried the torch round the world. She has tied continents together, and woven the chain which will bind men to each other in days that are to come. Honor her, for she deserves honor. Honor all nations, as aggregates of souls, your brother-souls; but honor most those nations that have worked with the Law and not against it. Those who aspired to see Germany the cradle of the new race should have made less noise in the birth chamber. They have scared the angel visitor away.

There are four races in Europe that are cruel races. They cannot rock the cradle of the divine infant. They would not remove the pin that stuck in its back, lest if it did not suffer and cry its lungs would lack air. I need not name these races. The Sixth Race is a sensitive infant and learns more through love than through discipline. The Sixth Race will apply the discipline to itself when it feels the need of it. Its schoolmaster will be curiosity, and its play will be the sciences and arts of peace. Its cradle-song will be a chant of Brotherhood. No, it could not be rocked in a German cradle; but many a German-American will help to rock it. They make lovely cradle-songs, the Germans, when they forget the superiority of being grown-ups and go back to the fancies of childhood, the myth-making fancies. We want to see more and more Frenchmen in the United States, for France has more to teach the new race than has any other nation—France, the inspired prophet, and most of all France the critic. Americans are not critical enough, not analytical enough, not subtle enough. America needs France, and the men and women of France. You have heard the old saying, “Every man has two countries, his own and France.” I may be misquoting, but the idea is there.

You wonder how anyone born to the glory and charm of France should ever come to the New World? But many will come, and more will follow, both by the path of the ocean and by the path of rebirth. You came that way yourself, if you but knew it. Recover the memory of past births, you pioneers of the Sixth Race! You can do it. It is part of the heritage of that race. America, the “melting pot” of nations! You were not made to rule an outside empire. When the time comes make over the Philippine Islands to a nation that can be trusted with them. Your empire is within your own body, you race of a score of races, you inheritor of a score of fathers, you mother of the one new race! Increase your army and navy so long as you are nervous. Put lightning rods on your house and burglar alarms on the doors and windows. Feel secure. Then dream about brotherhood—when you can trust in it. Sit by the fire of your own coal dug from the ground by Dutchmen, as it burns in a chimney of your own bricks made by the hands of Irishmen, read your own newspaper printed in the language of Englishmen, by the light of your own lamp made by a German, on your own hearthrug made by a Turk or an Armenian, enjoy the feel of your own muscles trained by a Swede, in your own linen washed by a Chinaman, listen to your daughter playing on your own piano the music of a Russian, an Italian, a Pole or a Frenchman, see all over your own room things made by the sons of a dozen other races, your neighbors, your fellow citizens, your fellow Americans, then tell me whether you dare not to believe in Universal Brotherhood, and in the new race, the synthesis of all races!

April 8

Letter 17

An American on Guard

I want to speak more of France, and of what she can do for America, the land of the coming new race. I have spoken before of her love, which is so great that even her own enemies cannot hate her. I have praised her critical genius, which analyses all things and compares one with another. But now I want to speak of her charm and her courtesy. You have said yourself that good manners are the imitation of kindheartedness. To imitate is to emulate. A race that has charming manners has a heart. A race that is brusque needs to cultivate heart. Employ French teachers in your schools, you Americans. A French teacher or a French mother tells her children not to do a certain thing because it is not pretty, another word for charming, for kind-hearted. If you imitate kind-heartedness this way, perhaps you will some day feel it, you American children.

By setting up the standard of beauty in deportment you need have no fear of forgetting the ethical. You all drank Puritan ethics with your mother’s milk; there is no danger that those precepts will be lost if you practice charm a little by way of variety. Every face in France was once a smiling face. It was not so this afternoon when I passed through France on my way to you. But the faces are still brave, because it is not pretty to make a parade of sorrow. I know the excess of French mourning-apparel might be called a parade of sorrow, but the black is worn as a mark of respect for all the dead of France. Taste! There is a race which has it. And in advising America to learn from the French, I am naturally selecting the good qualities of that nation. We all have faults of our own.

The taste of the French in the United States at this time! Do they print journals in English attacking their enemy? Do they support a lobby in Washington and a press-bureau in New York? If so I have not heard of them, and we hear of most things out here—we who keep our ears to the ground. If they grieve for their stricken country, they do not drop their tears on America’s freshly ironed shirt-bosom. If they hate their enemy, they hate him with a quiet, well-bred hate. If France wins a victory in the field, they do not bluster about it. If France loses in the field, they do not call their enemy a rattlesnake or some other kind of reptile. It would not be pretty. It might not be unethical, but it would be bad taste. Americans bluster too much. I said that when I myself was an American, before I was uprooted and became a citizen of the world invisible and universal, and I have not changed my mind by association with angels, adepts and masters. They never bluster, but the devils often do. In advising America to learn from France those things in which France is supreme, I am not depreciating other races. Each nation can learn something from every other nation. The Chinese and the Japanese have points where they rise above their neighbors. So have the Americans.

This war has brought out the dominant traits in all the warring peoples, and their complementary traits. Have you ever thought of the “turbaned Turk” (or, to be less Shakespearean, the fezzed Turk) as being gullible? Treacherous races are always gullible, as cruel races are apt to be sentimental—in all that touches themselves. “Free America” must beware of too many laws. England, too conscious of her virtue, will one day yield to temptation. Germany, “over all,” has got the whole world on top of her. Italy, the excitable, is now deliberating to a degree that would be dangerous for any other land. “Neutral America” is so unneutral that her right hand threatens her left, and both the whole body. Do not be impatient with President Wilson. He is dealing with the problems of the present war as if they were dated 500 B.C., and the long view is apt to be the clear view. The professor in him is safer than the politician in him. He is not happy just now. Why? Oh, that is an affair of State, and I am writing for publication! I know so many secrets that I am discreet as the family doctor.

But there is an “American on guard tonight.” Who is he? Old Abraham Lincoln, who renounced heaven that he might watch over the land he lived and died for. No, I shall not tell you any more about him. There is something sacred in a soul’s renouncing rest. He will not go too far away until America passes through her next great trial. When will that be? As the Beautiful Being says, “Nay, Child, you ask too much.” And still you are eager to know about Abraham Lincoln! I was eager to know about him myself a few short years ago; but I did not ask too many questions. It would not have been pretty, as the French mothers say.

April 8

Letter 18

A Master of Compassion

In my former book I reminded you that your friends who had passed into the astral world did not know everything; that though their sight was longer than before and their eyes less clouded by matter, they yet could not always prophesy as glibly as fortune-tellers—or at least that they were wiser not to attempt it. Now I have in mind an illustration of that very point, only the subjects are much more exalted than the ordinary dwellers on the astral plane. There is, for instance, not perfect unanimity in our minds as to all the details of the end of this war. There are two of us who often discuss ways and means, who, while desiring the same result of peace, have slightly varying views as to the best possible way to bring that result to pass.

One of our Brothers, who is still occupying his physical body most of the time, has a great desire to soften so far as possible the blow that is to fall upon one of the nations in this war. We all want to soften so far as possible the blow for that nation; but he has in his mind a plan which would, if put into effect, very materially soften it. He knows that he could perhaps bring it about in the way he wishes; yet he is far too wise to force the issue. He will not force the issue. He tries softly to inspire those who have it in their power to suggest the beginnings of peace according to his ideas. We do nothing to deflect the current of his loving thoughts, for he is the only one among us—and by us I mean the Brothers of a certain development—he is the only one among us who has a greater tenderness for one race than for all the others. He is not so old as some of us, but he is one of the greatest. He may be able to do what he wishes, but I personally am not sure. In one way he is wiser than I am; but my judgment is not at all influenced by tenderness for my own native land, which is not yet directly concerned, and so I may be a safer judge than he.

Do not take this as an admission of weakness in my Brother. Love is not a weakness. This brother wrote a prediction through the hand of a pupil of his not long ago. Perhaps it will be verified. Nothing will be thrown by any of us in the way of its verification. In fact, if it is the best way it will have the support of all. Even a Master does not know everything, though to the blind eyes of lesser men he seems to know everything. And a Master is too wise to attempt to force his individual will upon the world. The black magician is willing to bring things to pass by the power of his will, and often he can do it; but he does not always count on the reaction. The White Master always counts on the reaction. He works with the Law.

There is arising now in America a school of magic, for it is a form of magic that they practice, and the teachers of this school instruct their followers how to bring events to pass, how to demonstrate in the material world the material desires of their hearts. They can do it, the strong ones can, if their desires are not against the great stream of desire that carries the race forward. But often these material desires are not in strict accord with the karma of the person desiring; that is, the balance of karma being worked out now may be so violently drawn upon in one direction, that for the following life there will be left only a lot of unhappy karma, weak karma, which has not been wisely distributed over that time in which they have been operating with this new plaything, this magic power which they are using to make their present lives one glad sweet song. The way to get what you want is to will what the great Law decides. That is what the Masters do. And I am not denying the greatness of my Brother whom I mentioned a few pages back. He wills the will of the great Law, the same as all of us do; and if his tenderness for his native land has inspired him to devise a plan which seems in harmony with the great Law, he would not put the plan into effect if he could, should he realize that it was not in accordance with that law.

There is always danger for the man who is not a Master in pitting his judgment against the law of karma. If a poor man wants to be rich, and if he wills hard enough, he can become rich; but he may miss by the way other things that his soul needs far more than it needs riches. One of the greatest dangers that face America in the future is the danger of black magic. Among a hundred men or women who take up New Thought, Christian Science, ceremonial magic, and certain philosophies with even loftier verbal aims, there may be one whose desire is perfectly pure and unselfish. There is great power in America. The untrodden hills and mountains are full of fresh new forces that man may draw upon. Also the astral world above America—that layer of the astral which lies immediately outside the physical continent, as the aura of man extends beyond his body—that layer of the astral world above America is full of forces, elemental and astral forces, which can be used consciously by those who know how to use them, and which are used unconsciously by those whose personal desires are so strong that the more or less impersonal forces are obliged to follow them—swung into line by the power of desire or will. Great danger lies that way for those who use such forces for evil, and between selfish desire and evil the veil is very thin.

There are seeking incarnation in this new race many of those whose magical work along dark lines was interrupted in the old days of Atlantis. Yes, that story of Atlantis is true. Many of these souls are now coming in, some here and some in other countries; but their main course is in the direction of the New World. More and more the forces of magic will be used in the New World. It is for you and for others who know that magic used for selfish purposes is always black magic, to warn those who are too much fascinated by the idea that they can be the makers of their own fortunes at the expense of others. This warning is much needed. And I want to say to those whose only desire for occult knowledge is that they may use it for their own selfish ends, that if they stand in the way of the Law that works for unselfishness in the new race, they will be destroyed again as they were destroyed in ancient Atlantis. And I do not mean that their souls will be destroyed, but that their lives will be cut short and their influence for evil nullified.